Inside L.B.'s $100K public pension club

Long Beach has pumped more than twice as many retirees into the $100K Pension Club as the state average, according to the latest data from CalPERS.

But that's still fewer than many other large cities in the Golden State have sent to the rather exclusive club, including Anaheim and Santa Ana.

No. 1 on Long Beach's Top 20 retiree list is former city attorney John Calhoun, who got Congressional kudos as the longest-serving elected city attorney in California when he retired in 1998. His annual benefit was $210,803 in 2012, according to the state data.

That's quite a bit lower than what No. 1 pensioners earn in O.C., despite the fact that O.C. cities are a good bit smaller. Santa Ana's former city manager, Dave Ream, was No. 10 in the entire state of California, with an annual benefit of $272,560; and Anaheim's Tom Wood clocked in at No. 16 statewide, with $248,914 a year.

The No. 2 top-paid pensioner from the city of Long Beach is former city manager Henry Taboada, who was dismissed by City Council in 2002 after conflicts over a $46 million budget shortfall and Taboada's use of the vice mayor's real estate service to buy a home.

Taboada went on to work in Los Alamitos and at the Rossmoor Community Services District but is now retired. His pension was $189,577 last year.

In Long Beach, nearly three-quarters of those earning more than $100,000 a year in retirement benefits were public safety types, who have the most generous retirement formulas. Those formulas were approved in the halcyon days after 1999, when retirement systems were “super-funded” and actuaries said boosted benefits wouldn't cost a thing.

Consider:

Statewide, only 3 percent of retirees earn $100,000 or more per year in the California Public Employees Retirement System.

In Long Beach, however, 6.9 percent of retirees drew in excess of $100K (257 out of 3,732 current retirees).

In Sacramento, the closest match to Long Beach population-wise (if not view-wise), fewer retirees cracked the $100K Club (4.3 percent, or 76). And there were many fewer retirees to start with (1,766 – less than half the number currently collecting benefits after working for Long Beach).

The situation is more sobering in Oakland, which is a bit smaller than Long Beach. There, a somewhat stunning 12.5 percent of current retirees were in the $100K Club (363 out of 2,904 total). That's more than four times the state average.

In Anaheim, O.C.'s largest burg, 10.4 percent of retirees were in the $100K Club – more than three times the state average (171 out of 1,648).

And in Santa Ana, even more – 13.5 percent – clocked in at $100K a year or more (173 out of 1,278). Again, that's more than four times the state average.

Long Beach, like most Californian cities, is trying to rein in costs by asking workers to kick in more toward their pensions and by scaling back benefits for new police, firefighters and other city hires. Those moves will save it millions over the coming years.

Still, the hole in what it currently owes workers and retirees for pensions – and what it actually has – is a sobering $700 million, according to city documents. And its contributions to CalPERS will climb in coming years in an attempt to fill that hole.

The coming fiscal year is the first in about a decade that Long Beach has not faced broad budget cuts. Its general fund is slated to actually have a surplus of $3.5 million (out of $438 million general fund).

But the joy may be short-lived. The CalPERS rate increases for pensions between 2016 and 2020 are expected to eat about $16 million more per year from its general fund; and if CalPERS also decides to make further changes – i.e., factoring in longer projected life spans for retirees and lower expected returns on investments – pension payments could swallow as much as $31 million more per year from the general fund.

The general fund – which pays for core city operations, like police, fire and City Hall services – is a small part of Long Beach's overall budget of $3.1 billion. That includes a capital improvement plan of $882 million.

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